Guidelines for Examination

3.5 Abandonment of priority claim

An applicant may voluntarily abandon a claimed priority at any time. If he does so before the technical preparations for publication have been completed, then the priority date is not effective and the publication is deferred until 18 months after the filing date. If it is abandoned after the technical preparations for publication have been completed, then the application is still published 18 months after the priority date originally claimed (see A‑VI, 1.1 and G‑IV, 5.1.1).